


A Dame Like That

by NervousAsexual



Series: Sometimes a Family [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, Because I said so that's why, F/F, Long Time Coming (quest), canon or fanon, does Jennifer Lands have any personality, oh well, or is she just the trope of the favorite lamp that got broke, she's black and autistic and a total nerd, surprise surprise there are more aspec headcanons in a story i wrote, that almost never always happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-20 11:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13716834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: God knows his junior detective could use a little fun, but Nick just doesn't see this ending well. It sure didn't end well for him.





	1. Chapter 1

They heard it the first time they stepped into the Third Rail. The shushing of a brush on a cymbal. The caterwauling of a sax. A tinny voice echoing in the halls. Jazz.

In an instant memories came flooding back to Nick, some good, some bad, some his and some not. But Euthalia's deep brown eyes lit up like neon.

"That's live!" she cried. "Holy cow, Nick, live jazz! Come on!"

She ran ahead through the entryway. Nick picked up his pace and gave the ghoul bouncer a nod. The bouncer looked unconvinced but waved him through.

It took a moment for his sensors to readjust from the brightness of the entrance to the dim smoggy lighting of the bar proper. The air was thick with cigarette smoke. He could feel the ash and grit settling into his joints.

He took in the tattered furniture, the drifters scattered all throughout the bar, the Mister Handy slinging drinks, and finally spotted Euthalia standing beside the little stage, looking as utterly enraptured as he'd ever seen her. He leaned around her to see what was so enthralling. The human singer, he  guessed--and, he thought, observing the curves in all the right places, the thick dark hair, and the skin shown off by her low-cut neckline, she was definitely all human. More memories returned, memories of another girl.

"Kid," he said, touching Euthalia's shoulder and momentarily surprising himself with the sight of those plain steel bones of his. "You got a minute to talk?"

Euthalia stared at the singer for a moment longer, then turned to him, a blush spreading across her pockmarked freckled cheeks.

"Always," she said.

He made a gesture at a sofa tucked way back in the corner behind the chain link fence they had passed on the way in. It would be quieter there, or at least away from drunk, prying ears.

"Something wrong, Nick?" she asked as she sat down beside him. "You sound upset."

"Yeah. Guess I am. And you're the person I can trust enough to talk to about it."

She looked at him expectantly. Her only movement was her head bobbing along with the music. He'd seen a lot of her dirty laundry over the past few weeks. She'd proven she was trustworthy enough to hear his.

"Well," he said, patting the pockets of his trenchcoat. "It's like this. See, I... er..."

Euthalia patted his leg and nodded encouragingly. If he were Nick Valentine--if he were that Nick Valentine--he would have blushed. Finally, in the wrong pocket and on the wrong side, he located the pack of cigarettes. He offered it to her.

Euthalia shook her head. "I don't smoke."

"Me neither." Still, there was something calming about having one between his fingers. He wiggled it up and down and stared out at the smoky bar. Where to start?

She gave his leg one last pat and looked out over the bar too. "You know you can tell me anything, Nick."

And it all came spilling out. Everything. Winter. Widmark. Jennifer. God, Jennifer. He told her everything he could remember about Jennifer, about her smile and her smell, like coconut oil and pollen, and the way her eyes lit up and her hands flapped when she was talking about soil acidity and oxisols and no-tillage systems and a hundred other things neither he nor the Nick she'd loved knew anything about. By the time he finished the singer was drinking at the bar, the Mister Handy was glaring daggers at them, and Nick felt like if he stood up he'd collapse into a pile of scrap.

So that's what exhaustion's like.

For a long time Euthalia didn't say anything and didn't move and he didn't try to look at her just in case. He was dimly aware that this was a lot to ask of her, a lot to ask of anybody really but a lot to ask of a woman who just wanted to find her son.

Before he could apologize, Euthalia cleared her throat. "What do you need me to do?"

It was enough to make him believe in miracles. "I know where Winter's at. I know what I'm gonna do when I get my hands on him. The part of the plan I need help with is getting at him. He's all nice and cozy in Andrews Station behind a code-locked door. And the key to that code is in these holotapes."

The holotape he found in the pocket where the cigarettes were supposed to be. For a moment he held onto it--was he sure he wanted to go through with this? After the way Operation Winter's End had been twisted around?--but when she reached out to take it he let it go. She popped it into her Pip-Boy and they sat quietly and listened to Eddie Winter speaking across the centuries.

"Where should we start?" she asked at last.

"Hmm? Ah. There should be records about that, in police stations, maybe federal or military bases. Hell, maybe we'll get lucky and they're all still together somewhere. This one I picked up while we were at the station in Cambridge."

"Okay," she said. "I'll keep an eye out. And Nick?"

He glanced at her sideways.

"We'll get him. I promise."

Turned out he'd used all his words. He nodded quickly.

She gave him a smile and squeezed his knee. "I'm going to get a drink. Do you want..."

He wiggled the cigarette. "No. Thanks, though."

While she made her way to the bar he put the cigarettes back in the proper pocket. Somehow he didn't feel much better.

So this is what it's like to be on the other side of the desk, he thought dryly. Wasn't all it was cracked up to be.


	2. Chapter 2

Magnolia was trying to decide exactly what percentage cola to vodka she wanted for the road when somebody tapped her shoulder. That wasn't the unusual thing--there was always somebody trying to get her attention. The unusual bit was when she turned to see who it was, she found herself liking what she saw.

"Hey there," she said, taking in the dark, freckled face looking out from the vault jumpsuit. "What can I do for you?"

The woman blushed vigorously, lighting up the scar hooked over her nose and the deep brown eyes behind her glasses. She was cute, Magnolia had to give her that much.

 "What's the matter, sweetheart? Didn't you like the song?"

"It was beautiful," the woman said softly.

"Glad to hear it from you. I can tell a fellow performer when I see one. Good with your words, right? Know just the right thing to say at the right time?"

The woman giggled and glanced over her shoulder. What exactly she was looking at wasn't clear.

"So what's your name?"

"It's Euthalia."

"And how'd you end up here, Euthalia?"

She shrugged. "Same way everybody else does, I guess."

"Flew into town like a songbird, on a heavy wind and a wounded wing?"

"Close. Fell off the skybridge."

That did happen a lot. "Well, I'm glad you dropped in."

"Me too. Um..." She glanced back again and this time it looked like she was keeping an eye on the someone sitting off on the corner sofa.

"I was just getting ready to go home. May I walk you out?"

"I'd like that." Euthalia offered her arm. "I... I did come over here for a reason. Not just to flirt, honest."

A smile warmed Magnolia's face. She hooked her arm around Euthalia's. "Is that what we're doing?"

"Maybe not well," she admitted. "But honestly, ma'am? I'm a long way... a long  _time_ from home. I haven't heard music like yours since I got here. It means an awful lot to hear it." She ducked her head away. "I know that's silly."

"No, no, not silly at all. It means a lot to me too."

"I need to, um, pick up my friend." Euthalia nodded her head in the direction of that sad-looking sap on the couch. "Is it okay if...?"

"By all means." Her heels were killing her, sticking in the cracks in the floorboards again, but the woman in the vault suit didn't hurry her. As they came closer she could make out the person on the couch. Tattered trench coat and fedora, hunched over, unlit cigarette held loosely between two fingers. "Does your friend need a light?"

The man in the trench coat jumped at the sound of her voice and looked up. She found herself looking into a pair of glowing amber eyes set into rough synthetic skin.

"A synth?" she heard herself ask.

"He's good," Euthalia said quickly, but the synth looked away. "This is Nick. Nick Valentine. He's with me."

"Oh." She put on her brightest smile but it wouldn't do any good if he wouldn't look at her. "The synth detective from Diamond City. We might not be a big town but even I've heard of Nick Valentine. It's very exciting to meet you in the... in person."

"Pleasure's mine," he said quietly.

"Come on, Nick." Euthalia held out a hand to him, and after a moment's hesitation he took it. His own hand was nothing but stainless steel bones. "We'd better get moving."

He let her pull him up, although he surely could have stood on his own.

"Yeah," he said, and gave Magnolia a quick nod before looking away again. "People to see. Places to go."

 They climbed the stairs into the neon glow of the lobby and Magnolia gave Ham a smile. He waved her off but smiled as he did it. Outside it had just begun to sprinkle. Nothing too radioactive, just enough to make her glad she didn't have far to go.

"See you around," she said to Euthalia.

"I'd like that," Euthalia said.

She didn't really mean it like that, but it was a nice thought. She squeezed Euthalia's hand and gave her a kiss on the cheek and left her standing in the rain in the middle of Goodneighbor.


	3. Chapter 3

The holotape they found at the Natick Department wasn't one he took easily.

He ran through it first. It was a message to Winter's girlfriend. Taking her out wining and dining. Seven, that was the number he needed. He didn't want to know about Winter's love life. He didn't really want to think about Nick Valentine's love life either. But Euthalia wasn't a synth, wasn't nearly as efficient, and she had to play the tape back in that Pip-Boy of hers, which meant he had to hear it all again, at a speed she could process.

Nick tried to be patient. It made no sense to be upset at having to wait. He'd been waiting 200 years, give or take, for his shot at Eddie Winter, and he could damn sure wait for Euthalia to get her bearings on the Commonwealth. 

It was hard to listen to her talk, though.

She sounded happy, really happy, for the first time since he'd known her, and not just when she talked about Magnolia. Didn't take a detective to figure out the reason, though. It was the same thing that happened when Ellie saw a girl she fancied at the noodle joint or the barbershop. The warm and fuzzies, Ellie called it, and it was tolerable enough to sit through but it raised some questions with him that he wasn't sure he'd like to answer.

And then Euthalia had to come right out and ask them.

"What was it like?" she asked as they were forging north, looking for a place where she could bunker down for the night.

There was an abandoned church not far, he recalled, the one with the passage leading to the ration stockpile. Seemed like as good a place as any. He came up beside her, subtly steering her in that direction. "What was what like?"

"Having a... you know... a girlfriend."

Aw, shit. Here it comes. "Why'd ya ask? Nervous?"

"No. I don't know. Maybe a little. What's it like?"

"I doubt it's that much different from having a boyfriend."

There was the church, exactly where he remembered it. Quiet, just like it had been before.

"I haven't dated in more than two hundred years, Nick. Just humor me."

Maybe it was more serious than the warm and fuzzies after all. Probably should have seen that coming, but he had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

"I... I don't know what to tell you." He took a seat in one of the pews, tried not to worry too much about the sun-bleached skeletons underfoot. "It was good. Amazing, even. Hard work sometimes but worth it."

"Did it make you happy?"

"I don't know. Look, I'm not him, okay? I might have Nick Valentine's memories but I'm not... I'm not him."

She sat down beside him and fished a box of Fancy Lads out of her coat. "So, wait. Does that mean you don't love Jennifer? Or you do, but it's just like loving somebody you met in a dream?"

"I don't know. I guess not. I don't think I love anybody the way Nick loved Jennifer."

She gave him the biggest brightest smile. "That's awesome, Nick! That means you're not just a copy of somebody who died centuries ago. It means you're really your own person."

That didn't make him feel much better. Whatever feelings Nick Valentine had had for Jennifer Lands, they had been important to him. "Guess you're right."

"Usually am." She elbowed him good-naturedly and took a bite of the snack cake. "Ugh. Stale as hell."

"Listen, I wanted to talk to you about Magnolia."

Once again she surprised him with how deep she could blush.

"It's not like that. You're a grown woman, you've been married, had a kid. You don't need a safe sex talk with me."

She giggled helplessly.

"I just wonder if you're falling for the right kind of girl."

The giggling stopped. Euthalia didn't say anything.

"You see a lot in my line of work. Usually when a person falls for a woman like that... they get their heart broke. Ya get me?"

Again his only answer was silence.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"No. No, it's sweet that you're worried." He couldn't read anything in her voice and he didn't dare look at her face for a clue. "Like you said. I'm a grown woman. I can handle myself."

He closed his eyes and squeezed his hands together, and after a moment he heard Euthalia get up and move away. Maybe she thought he was praying.

Maybe he was, he thought, and silently apologized to Jenny Lands that he couldn't feel the way for her she deserved.


	4. Chapter 4

Euthalia promised herself she wouldn't let what Nick had said color her date with Magnolia, but that turned out to be easier said than done.

They were in town to resupply and it seemed as good a time as any. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe she should have brought somebody else with her to Goodneighbor that day. Better yet, why hadn't she come alone? While Magnolia was singing Euthalia sat at the bar, trying to avoid looking at Nick. That, too, was easier said than done. He kept moving around, sitting on one bench and then moving to a couch and then a chair back by the VIP lounge.

Whitechapel Charlie didn't say much beyond his sales spiel, but Euthalia wasn't thirsty. Against her better judgement she'd taken just a little Buffjet earlier, just a little bit, when Nick wasn't looking. That would only give him more reason to say this was a bad idea. But in this he would have been right. She was already regretting it. Buffjet? Really? You need steroids to enjoy a night out with a beautiful woman? For a few minutes she entertained the idea of just walking away, pretending none of this had never happened, possibly never returning to Goodneighbor again, but just as she was getting up the courage to stand Magnolia's hand settled on her shoulder and everything blew away in the wind.

It was good.

It was--no question--amazing.

They woke up in the Hotel Rexford and maybe it was the last of the Buffjet leaving her system, but Euthalia had never felt so alive. She was ready to get up and kick the Institute's ass, torch a raider encampment, arm-wrestle super mutants to death. Her mind was whirling a hundred miles a minute, and she thought if Magnolia had asked her to marry her right this moment she would say yes.

She turned to smile at Magnolia, but the singer wasn't looking at her. She'd turned away and was easing her feet back into her high heels.

"Thanks," Magnolia told her. "I haven't had a night out on the town in too long. This was fun."

Euthalia rolled onto her side and hooked an arm around Magnolia's waist. Magnolia gave her a little smile out of the corner of her eye and patted her arm before she went back to buckling her heels.

"I'd like to do it again next time I'm back in town."

Magnolia sighed and didn't look at her, just gazed at the dusty curtains hanging limply on the windows and the sunshine streaming in between them.

"Maggie?"

"I'm sorry." Magnolia shifted a bit to look down at her. "This has been fun, it really has. But I'm afraid my first love is always going to be the stage. I hope you understand."

No. This wasn't what she wanted. This was the opposite of what she wanted. "I understand. I'm glad we could at least have... this." Whatever this was.

"Me too." Magnolia got to her feet and even though she desperately wanted to hang on Euthalia let her go. "I'll see you around Goodneighbor, okay?"

"'Kay."

She looked away for just a moment, making sure all her clothes were still there, but when she looked back Magnolia was gone. She dressed slowly. Maybe it was the Buffjet after all.

Checked her pockets. Checked her Pip-Boy, her gun, her stimpack supply. Everything seemed to be in order. She pushed open the hotel room door, not wanting to be there a minute longer, and when she looked up she saw him standing there in the hall.

She looked away, waiting for the lecture, but it didn't come.

"Ready to go?" Nick asked quietly.

"Yeah. Let's get out of here."


	5. Chapter 5

When they emerged from that damn spuckie shop, just a few steps from where Jennifer Lands had drawn her last breath, he didn't want to go home. You could still see the bullet holes in the asphalt. Hell of a way to go. She didn't even like spuckies, didn't even like sandwiches, and this was where her time had run out.

How was he going to go back to Diamond City after this? What was he supposed to do now? Stroll home, give Ellie the night off, dive headfirst into another case? Let Euthalia send him back to Sanctuary Hills with that dog of hers?

He didn't do either. They went back to Goodneighbor, to the Third Rail, and Euthalia ordered two vodka and colas. The Mister Handy didn't say a word to him. It was like the cigarettes. He couldn't enjoy them the way Nick Valentine had, but it helped to have something to hold.

"You told him she was your fiance," Euthalia said at last. He could smell the drink on her breath but she didn't sound drunk.

"What?"

"When he asked who you were. You told Winter that Jennifer Lands was your fiance."

He didn't feel much like arguing semantics. "She was Nick Valentine's fiance. You gotta talk to 'em in a language they understand."

"But she wasn't your fiance. You aren't that Nick, you know? You know that. You might have his memories but you don't have to be him. You can be anyone you want."

Scratch that, maybe she was drunk after all. "I owe my entire life to Nick."

She sank back into the couch and it was too dark to read her expression, but he could see her moving the littlest bit to the music.

"Everything that makes me who I am, my judgement, my speech, hell, my name, they're all his."

Still she said nothing.

"And I... I can't do a damn thing about it because without them I'm nothing. Just a shell."

He thought about Jennifer Lands, talking to her damn soil samples or reading her fantasy books or lighting the candles on Shabbat. She was everything, she was what had kept him going, and she wasn't even his.

"All I want," he said, more to himself than anything, "I just want a life where I have something I can call my own."

"You've got that," Euthalia said. "You've already built a life for yourself, Nick. You've got the agency. A home." She squeezed his knee and if he were the type to cry he might do that. "You've got friends."

"Heh. I mean, you're not wrong."

"Never am."

"I'm just going to need some time to think about this. Thanks for hearing me out. You're... you're a real good friend."

"Gonna be okay?"

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for a while, but when Magnolia came down off the stage he could see her hoping. He nudged her and she gave him a concerned look.

"G'won," he told her. "Can't hurt to ask."

Her frown turned to a smile, a little one, and she got up off the couch.

"Hey there, darling," Magnolia said. "Did you like the song?"

"Loved it. Listen, Magnolia, I was wondering. Do you think we could... maybe... get to know each other a little better?"

He saw the sadness in Magnolia's eyes before Euthalia realized what was coming, he thought.

"I... don't think that would be a good idea. Is there something else I can help you with?"

Euthalia didn't say anything for a moment, it was awkward and he was glad he was not part of this but a little annoyed with himself for letting her set herself up for rejection like that.

"I wouldn't mind hearing another song," Euthalia said at last.

"The audience is always right." Magnolia turned back toward the stage. "I can do that for you."

He looked down at his drink as Euthalia came back and sank back into the couch. "I'm sorry."

"Don't. Don't be."

Couldn't help that.

"If that's all she has to give I'm lucky to get it. Like Jennifer. Like you."

"Don't say that." He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to talk about how he couldn't love her the way she deserved to be loved.

"I'm serious, Nick." She put her hand on his cheek and tried to turn him to look at her. "You love her in the biggest best way you can. She has somebody who was still willing to go through hell for her two hundred years after she was dead and gone. Everybody should be so lucky."

That hurt to hear, but not in the way he thought it would.

"You okay? Want me to get you a refill on the drink?" She kept staring at him. "Do you want to go home? Just tell me what you want and I'll get it."

He let his head tip forward and rested his forehead against hers.

"I got you as a friend," he told her. "There's nothing more one old bot could ask for."


End file.
